I agree totally with CHEWIE. At least a mention here. Taking a moment to look back over the pics, I was even more amazed at the detail and the workmanship of this huge project. All in all, how long did it take you?

That is REALLY neat! The detail is just amazing! IMO it looks like something out of Bespin. Looking back through the posts, I see that CHEWIE mentioned this as well! Awesome work, and the figures look great all set up!

I have kids the same age as yours DeanPaul and I wonder how often those figures get totally knocked down and thrown all over the room. If I had a setup like that those figures would never stand a chance of standing upright. It would turn into one big pile of toys.

Quite the outstanding job at making the playset. So many people have mentioned they were going to make the playset over the years, but you've achieved it and with spectacular results to boot. Any plans to give it a paintjob similar to the original article or are you at the point where with all the toys on their the kids wouldn't want to take them off? Those are actually my favorite pictures, the ones with all the toys on the playset and the kids playing with them, just great stuff.

Wow - Thanks everyone for the kind words. The playset is getting a lot of use and holding up well. Leif's cousins are coming on Thursday to check it out, that should be the real proof of concept day regarding durability!

Amazing! Your kids are so lucky to have a father like you that can make such wonderful play sets. The part I like best about this project is the clear platforms. Are you going to leave the entire set white or paint it? What if you added alittle bespin-like sculpture for the center. It could be the complex's fountain.

You're right, it does look a lot like Bespin because of the white - more than I thought it would originally. The renderings I did look a little blue/grey, and I really liked that look but thought the toys may feel flat against it. the white also receives some nice shadowing from the vinyl striping on the 1/2" acrylic.

Mostly I wanted a neutral place for a wide variety of ships to stand out. I really wanted the Hasbro products themselves to be the heros and this place be just a space for stuff to happen. My daughter had the best line when we were setting up all of the figures for pictures. She said "it's like a bunch of stories all happening at the same time".

Oh...My...God! What a wonderful Christmas present!!! Your grandfather would be proud and it would touch his heart to know that his original version helped inspire to make this for your kid(s).

This deserves a front page mention here and on the cover of Toy Fare magazine...

Thanks Chewie, while I've built a number of things in the past there was a real connection building this project since it was so similar to the one he made for me. I really recognize what a labor of love it must have been for him, considering the tools he had access to and the size of his workshop.

I honestly hadn't considered this project making the front page here at Defender - thanks for the nomination and to Jesse for posting it. Toy Fare is probably a little far off, but thanks for the compliment!

I agree totally with CHEWIE. At least a mention here. Taking a moment to look back over the pics, I was even more amazed at the detail and the workmanship of this huge project. All in all, how long did it take you?

Thanks there are a lot more images on my Mac account. Seriously, there are a bunch of cool pictures of this there. Go check them out. This is one of my favorites:

I created the computer model in April. It took about a day or two to do that. I was slow with professional projects and at the time I thought it might make a good October birthday present. Instead I got super busy in August and September, and it slid until Christmas. I mentioned earlier that I had most of my parts milled on a CNC machine. This saved me a lot of time and effort, especially with the accuracy of the angles and the finished edges of the acrylic. I didn't get my parts until the 17th (even then I was missing a few) so I had less than a week to put it all together. I couldn't tell you total hours, but it was extensive. I had two all-nighters (with power equipment) during the week, but it was finished and painted Thursday night. I assembled it in place Christmas Eve, and with the other projects I was up until 3am.

Here are the other pieces of furniture I built for Christmas:

The metal shelves with baltic birch tops were for Leif, the play table was for Finn and the baltic birch/cherry/red shelves were for Savannah.

This desk was for Savannah and Leif to share our old computer and also have room for drawing. I chickened out of making drawers in time for Christmas...

I have kids the same age as yours DeanPaul and I wonder how often those figures get totally knocked down and thrown all over the room. If I had a setup like that those figures would never stand a chance of standing upright. It would turn into one big pile of toys.

It only looked like that for the pictures. You may notice that several ships and figures are missing parts and have some serious paint wear. That's because we play with everything, and a lot of time these toys do sit in heaps on the ground. I'm hoping the heaps will stay better confined to the space station going forward, but it's doubtful.

Here are a few more images:

Thanks again to everyone for the encouragement.

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Wow. This really is a major piece of work. Like everyone else, I'm touched by the family connection of the whole thing, and bowled over by the craftsmanship. I've got a 15 month old, and another due in the summer, and I hope that I can share SW with them the way you are with your children. Simply awesome, and a great way to start a new year!

Any plans to give it a paintjob similar to the original article or are you at the point where with all the toys on their the kids wouldn't want to take them off?

I looked into using cut vinyl to apply colored geometry but my wife thought it wouldn't look Star Wars-y. The magazine article spec'd plywood components, and the vinyl taping was meant to hide the edges of the plywood banding. Since I used MDF, I got a nice clean edge that painted well for the most part. I did want some markings for ship landing areas, so I had matte white shapes I drew in Adobe Illustrator cut on a Gerber machine. I also had some thin stipes cut that you see on some of the acrylic - they create a nice shadow scape below and still retain a venetian blind type transparency.

I'm passing on color for now, mosly because it's done enough except for the monorail car.

« Last Edit: December 27, 2005, 09:01 PM by Deanpaul »

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"Regime change, like charity, begins at home." - Ira Glass, This American Life